


In Search Of A New Morning

by Daphne_Fredriksen



Category: The Man in the High Castle (TV)
Genre: F/M, Married Life, One Shot, Relationship(s), married love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-26 00:31:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16671340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daphne_Fredriksen/pseuds/Daphne_Fredriksen
Summary: Stand-alone TMITHC fanfic.  A bittersweet look at the relationship between John & Helen.





	In Search Of A New Morning

Oberstgruppenführer Smith sat in his office, listening to his aide drone on about meetings and briefings. He pretended to be attentive, but his mind wandered.  


They were moving the furniture into the penthouse today. He had watched them place Helen’s dressing table to where she could best view the glories of the penthouse view.  


He preferred a different view, one from their old house in Long Island…  


He’d been lounging, legs crossed, in one of the Louis Quinze chairs, watching her get ready. Ever since she had been his new bride, it was his habit to watch her get ready, and it was still magical for him. Still in her peignoir, all sleepiness and sensuality, she kissed him on the cheek, and then she seated herself at the dressing table, and put on clothes she’d set out the night before. Then with buttonings and powderings and jewelry-fastenings, she was all business, the efficient mother, wife, homemaker, and socialite – the secret power that kept him going.  


She picked up a bottle of the latest scent, “Love & Lindens.” John always remembered to bring her the newest items when he went to the Reichskapital. She opened it and sniffed it. “Mmm, divine! Thank you, my love.”  


John went over, and put his hand on the stopper. “May I?” She nodded and he dabbed, carefully: her wrists, behind her ears, the base of her neck. She had not yet put her lipstick on, and he kissed her, gently. She kissed him back, tentatively, then, reaching for him with growing passion.  


… A phone rang... how many times were they interrupted in their morning routine by some phone call, back in the day? (Though “the day” was really only a few months ago.) Sometimes it was for him, but often it was Lucy or Alice wanting to visit Helen. Maybe the girls had a sleepover; and then there was that girl that Thomas liked. (Or did the girl like Thomas? And why was he losing the details, when he needed to remember all he could about his son?...)  


The phone rang again, and John realized it was coming from the outer office. His mind came back to HQ as Metzger walked back in. “That was the moving crew,” he said. “Everything is moved, and in place. But when you are home, if anything is not to your liking…”  


“Is everything to Mrs. Smith’s liking?” That, after all, was the important point.  


Metzger took a breath. “I believe so. The movers said that when they left, she was arranging things. She apparently was taking great care with the knick-knacks on the table…”  


“Good.”  


The aide left, and John was alone with his thoughts. He hoped they meant the dressing table, not the dining table or the buffet. The latter would mean a deeper descent into drink.  


He could not bear to think of that. He imagined instead that she was arranging her lipsticks, the light powder that made her skin so cool and desirable, the bewitching perfume bottles.  


He would send flowers to her, would do it now, pink roses, and he would see them this evening in their bedroom. He would buy her some silver-backed brushes that he saw at Tiffany’s and she would let him brush her hair this evening, like when they were first married. He blinked his eyes to keep back tears, refusing to see her in her pain.  


He could make her happy again, if she would let him in. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine a new morning, a smiling morning, where she held him and dabbed on her scent and dropped her peignoir and became his new bride again.


End file.
